While officials are standing firmly by a controversial initiative to add nicknames to major roads in Taipei, criticism has been steadily mounting from the public.
On June 8, Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Under the new system, the city's 10 major east-west roads have been given numbers and are now also known as boulevards, while the 14 major north-south roads have also been assigned numbers and called avenues.
The new initiative, however, has been greeted with a barrage of criticism from both the foreign community and scholars, who said that the city should have standardized the road names first.
"What they're doing is simply putting the cart before the horse," said Jason Chang (
"Making the city more accessible to foreigners should start with enforcing one coherent spelling system for street names and the names used for public transportation networks and tourist maps," Chang said.
Chang, who was one of the scholars invited to the city's discussion sessions last year, said he was dubious about the city's sincerity in soliciting the opinions of interested parties in this matter.
"It appears the city has already set its mind on this idea regardless of what we think," he added.
Lin Lee-yu (
"The nicknames are mainly for the reference of short-stay travelers, while the English street names are for the use of long-term expatriate residents. They're two separate systems meeting the demands of two different markets," she said.
Hwang Cherng-chwan (
"Long-term expatriates can always find a way to get around and to get used to the street names; but what do short-term visitors care? Most of them travel with local friends or sign up for guided tours," he said.
Wang Yuh-yeh (
According to Wang, the numbering system was first proposed on March 18 of last year by Stanley Yen (
The Bureau of Civil Affairs and the city's Bureau of Transportation last year held a total of five seminars and public hearings in a bid to listen to a whole range of views on the issue.
The Bureau of Civil Affairs later filed a letter with the Ministry of Education requesting they speed up standardizing the Romanization of street names.
Ke Jeng-feng (
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS